Fourteen

FOURTEEN

It's the night of the séance with Patrice and Heather. We're holding it in the forest, because that's what teen girls did in the nineties. They were too old for huddling in a bedroom, giggling over a Ouija board. Movies and books had shown them how this was done, and if you couldn't get into some creepy old house that'd once hosted black-mass orgies, you had to go into the forest.

Patrice was in the lead. She might have started off letting Heather take charge, but she'd found her footing fast enough.

"How far are we going?" I say. "I've already lost my shoe once in this bog."

"It's not a bog," Patrice says. "It's just muddy, and you lost your shoe for two seconds, Nic. Stop whining."

"But how far—"

"Are we there yet?" Patrice cuts in with a whiny-little-kid voice.

I bop her in the back for that. "Legit question. I'm the only one who brought a decent flashlight, and I can still barely see. Weren't we supposed to do this on a full moon or something?"

"Full dark, " Heather says. "That's how real séances are done. As for where we're going… You tell her, Pat."

"We're going to the site of a murder. A double murder."

"Uh…" Heather says. "Not to be pedantic, but it was a murder-suicide."

"Are you sure?" Patrice turns, her weak penlight under her chin, as she intones, "Are you really sure?"

Heather rolls her eyes and catches up beside me. "Two teenagers died out here about twenty years ago. A guy and a girl. There was a big bonfire, and they took off to get laid. Only they never came back. The next day, a search party found them."

"God, Heather," Patrice says, "how do you make a double murder sound boring? Can you try adding a little imagination?"

That wasn't just mean. It was downright cruel, and when Heather falters, I want to snap back with the worst thing I can think of. Maybe address the rumor that Patrice gave Cody a blow job behind the school last year.

I wouldn't do that, though. I swallow my anger and say to Heather, "So the next day, a search party found them…"

"Let me tell the story," Patrice says with a dramatic wave of her arms. "From the top."

"No need," I snap. "I got the gist—"

"It's fall," Patrice says. "The week before Halloween. There's a chill in the air, and the night is pitch black, no moon. Just like tonight."

I bite my tongue. I don't actually want this story. I just want to get where we're going and finish this bullshit séance.

Patrice continues, "There's a bonfire with kids from our school. My aunt Lori is one of them." She glances at me. "She's told me the whole story, including the parts the news refused to cover." She pauses for effect. "Like how some of those kids weren't just drinking and partying. They were summoning dark spirits."

"Uh-huh."

"They were doing that, when all of a sudden, this guy, Roddy, gets up and walks into the forest. He doesn't say a word. He just stands up and walks into the darkness. Roddy was dating my aunt's friend, Samantha, who went after him. My aunt tried to, but Sam told her to stay, that they'd be right back. My aunt always said Sam saved her life there."

Patrice pauses, and I'm hoping that's the end of the story. I can deduce the rest. Sam follows Roddy, they get into a fight, Sam dies, Roddy kills himself. But Patrice is only pausing to check our location, and after she points down a side path, she resumes the story.

"When they didn't come back, my aunt figured Roddy stormed off to his truck and they left together. That meant she'd lost her ride home. So she had to stay until the end of the bonfire, waiting for other friends to give her a lift. When she reached the parking lot, though, Roddy's truck was still there. My aunt was worried—she wanted to go look for them. The other kids said Roddy and Sam took off to screw around in the forest and probably fell asleep afterward. If Aunt Lori wanted to go look for them, she was doing it alone. She decided they were right—and didn't want to be left by herself—so she took the ride. When she got home, she thought of calling Sam's place, but it was two in the morning."

Patrice pauses again, lifting her weak flashlight. "Just over here. See that big tree with the black marks? That's the spot."

I lift my own light and spot a massive maple with what looks like lightning damage. Once we reach it, though, the black marks seem to be…

"Fungus?" I say, peering at the trunk. "No, it's missing pieces of bark, and the wood's all black below. Some kind of disease?"

Patrice smiles smugly. "That's where they found her."

"Sam?"

Patrice takes out a blanket. Heather, who has been silent since the insult, catches the other end to help spread it.

I'm ready to prod again when I stop. I don't want this story, right? Except now, seeing that tree, I kinda do. Damn it.

I take candles from my backpack. Bringing them was my responsibility. Plain black candles, which seemed easy enough, until I realized they weren't the sort of thing you could grab in Kmart or Zellers, not in May. Apparently, black candles are for Halloween, and if you want them any other time… Are you one of those goth kids? Doing some dark ritual?

No… and yes. But not being goth, I didn't know where to buy black candles out of season. So I had to make my own stubby, lumpy ones.

The others brought the rest of the supplies—bowls and chalices and, of course, the mushrooms. I light the candles—they work!—while Patrice pours red wine she swiped from home.

When Heather sprinkles the mushrooms in two glasses of wine, I watch carefully to be sure none gets in mine. But Heather isn't Patrice. While Patrice might think it was funny to "accidentally" drop some in my wine, Heather wants me clearheaded in case anything goes wrong.

Heather puts some stuff into the bowl. I don't know what it is, only that it comes from multiple little baggies, and she tops the mixture off with a sprinkle of the mushrooms.

We all take our places, wineglasses in hand. They sip theirs, and I do the same. I have no idea if it's good wine or "plonk" as Mom would say, but it tastes foul.

"They found her in the tree," Patrice says, startling me.

I frown. "They found Sam in the tree?"

Her eyes glitter, and I realized I might really not want the rest of this story.

"The search team came out the next day. Roddy's dad was a cop, so they didn't wait twenty-four hours."

Which they wouldn't if two teens disappeared in a forest, but I don't correct her.

"They had dogs and everything," she says. "The dogs brought the searchers to the foot of this tree. My aunt was with them—she'd admitted to being at the bonfire and showed the search party where to go. She said as soon as they got close to the tree, they spotted Roddy. He was sitting at the base, like he was asleep, with his head tilted to one side. Except his head was really to one side, almost flat against his shoulder. The others didn't notice, and his dad marched forward to shake Roddy's shoulder… and his head almost fell clean off."

"Oh!" Heather says, her hand flying to her mouth. "I never heard that part."

"Because it wasn't in the papers."

Heather frowns. "So he didn't kill himself?"

"He did. He was still holding the knife. He cut his throat so deep, he nearly decapitated himself."

"Is that… possible?" Heather asks.

Patrice's eyes glint in the candlelight. "That's the question, isn't it? The coroner ruled it a suicide, but can someone really do that to themselves? My aunt said that no one who saw Roddy that night believed he killed himself. And then there was Sam."

She pauses to be sure she has our full attention. "When they realized Roddy was dead, his father went apeshit. Starts ranting about ‘that little bitch' killing him. This guy—another cop—is trying to calm him down and wipes his own forehead, like he's sweating. Only it's blood. Blood dripping from the tree. He looks up… and there's something up there."

"Sam," Heather breathes. "I heard she was found in the trees. I thought that just meant she was in the forest."

Patrice smirks. "That was how they worded it. She was in an actual tree. This one. When Aunt Lori looked up, she thought it was some kind of animal. All she could see was blood and guts. Literally guts, intestines hanging down. It was my aunt who saw Sam's face first. Sam was lying over the branches with her stomach ripped open. My aunt looked up… and Sam's eyes opened."

Heather lets out a strangled yelp.

"She was still alive?" I say. "After spending the night in a tree with her stomach ripped apart?"

Patrice's mouth sets in a firm line. "It can happen. Stomach injuries take a long time to kill you."

"Yes, but—"

Her glare silences me. I glance at Heather, and I'm prepared to stop Patrice if she's genuinely disturbing Heather, but I recognize the look in Heather's eyes. It's the look of anyone listening to spooky stories in the dark. Scared shitless… and loving it.

"Her eyes open," Patrice says. "Her lips part. And she says one thing. One last thing before she dies."

"What?" Heather whispers.

"‘ It did this. '" She looks from Heather to me. "Not he did this. Not Roddy did this. It did this. My aunt went to her grave believing the other kids had summoned something dark, something evil, and it killed her friend." Patrice shifts. "After what Aunt Lori saw, she was never right again. I said that she told me this story. But I didn't say where she told it from."

Patrice looks between us again. "A mental hospital. Aunt Lori never recovered from what she saw right here, in this clearing."

Patrice points at the old maple. "That tree never recovered either. Those marks were there when the search team found Roddy. And they're still there."

Patrice reaches for her wineglass and takes a bigger swig. "That's not the first thing that happened in this forest either. People have disappeared. People have died. Every now and then, someone buys the land for a housing development. Then they hear the stories, and they realize no one would ever want to live here."

Patrice sets down her glass. "My aunt said it all started when settlers first arrived in Alberta. They weren't prepared for Canadian winters, and things got bad, and when spring came, there were a lot fewer people in their little village. They claimed they'd buried all the dead. Somehow buried them in frozen ground. Everyone knew what happened, but they all pretended to believe the story. But here's the real question…"

She leans forward, eyes nearly red behind the flames. "Is this place cursed because of what those pioneers did? Or were they driven to do it because this place is cursed?"

I know this story is ninety percent bullshit. Yes, I'm sure Sam and Roddy died. He killed her, maybe stabbing her in the stomach, and then he slit his own throat. But the embellishments belong to Patrice—or her mentally disturbed aunt.

The story is intended to prepare us for the séance. We did that at the middle-school ones, too. Tell a spooky story to get everyone in the mood, ready to jump at a whisper or a breeze through the window. It's just different hearing them in the security of someone's bedroom… versus hearing them in a dark and empty forest where two teens actually did die.

I want to stop this. I want to get up and walk away, and if Patrice and Heather stay behind, then that's their choice.

But if I back out now, they'll never let me live it down. I'm the logical one, the reasonable one. If I get spooked and quit, then every time I try to play it cool, they'll remind me of the time I ran away from a séance.

Other kids will hear about it, too. Patrice won't keep her mouth shut. She'll tell someone, who'll tell someone, and if I complain, she'll mock me for "whining."

So remind me why I'm friends with Patrice? She can be mean and downright cruel. She has no sense of loyalty. In fact, most times, her friends are the target of her cruelty.

I'm being grumbly. I know that. I'm unsettled and taking it out on Patrice.

In the end, I stay because of what's floating in those damn chalices. Because I promised Heather I'd stand watch while she took the mushrooms and she's already drunk that wine.

"Shall we begin?" Patrice says in a singsong voice.

I mutter under my breath, but I don't say anything aloud. When someone needs to contribute a drop of blood to the bowl, it's Patrice, so I must give her credit for that. She volunteered, and she sticks out her hand and Heather picks up the knife.

At the last second, I realize I'm letting a girl who just drank mushroom-infused wine wield a knife. But before I can stop them, it's done. One small cut to the tip of Patrice's finger. Patrice barely flinches. Heather massages out three drops of blood, and I watch them fall into the bowl, on top of the mixture within.

Then Patrice begins the incantation. It's the one Heather got from the cousins in Cuba, but Patrice had added stuff from a book.

What book?

I hadn't asked.

Where did it come from?

I hadn't asked.

Should I have asked?

I pick up my wineglass, mostly to feign taking another sip. I double-check the contents. Clear red wine, no bits of dried mushroom. I saw Patrice open the bottle, so it can't be dosed. And I've only had a sip.

I'm spooked. That's what it comes down to. I'm spooked by that damn story and these damn woods and that damn tree. And Patrice's damn incantation isn't helping.

As she speaks, dread settles in my gut. I want to stop up my ears against the words, and then I'm shamed by the impulse. It's silly words in a silly ritual.

Something moves in the darkness, a shadow against the black night. I turn sharply, but nothing's there, and Patrice is still talking.

Now I'm really spooked. I'm—

"Sam…" The voice comes from the trees, and it's Heather who jumps first, yelping.

"Samantha…" That comes from the other side, and I twist, tracking the sound.

A footstep sounds, slow and deliberate. My gaze shoots that way, my heart racing. Another footstep… from the other direction. A twig cracks underfoot, and I jump.

Then another twig, this one behind Heather.

As I stare into the forest, a whisper floats out. "Where are you going, Sam?"

Another whisper from the opposite direction. "There's no point in running."

"You hear that, right?" Heather says to me, her eyes huge.

I nod. We both stare into the forest, where we can still hear footsteps, at first to my left and then behind Heather.

It's only then that I realize Patrice hasn't said a word. She's sitting where she had been while she recited the incantation. Her eyes are open and unfocused and staring.

"Patrice?" I whisper. "Are you hearing—"

She pushes to her feet, still staring straight ahead.

"Nic?" Heather whispers. "What's wrong with—"

Patrice turns on her heel, sharp enough to startle us both. Then, without a word, she marches into the forest.